From 2005: Television can make you famous, but it can’t keep you famous. It’s more like an opiate–as soon as you stop taking your daily fix, you get all pale and clammy, and before lon…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“But the old adage that men grow into office has not proved true in my experience. High office teaches decision-making, not substance. Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMI noted in this space eleven years ago the death of Joseph J. Zimmermann Jr., the man who invented the answering machine. On that occasion I quoted something that H.L. Mencken told a reporte…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:30AMIrving Berlin sings “God Bless America” as part of a tribute to his eightieth birthday telecast on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 5, 1968. He wrote the song in 1918. It was first performed …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:15AM“The typical political leader of the contemporary managerial society is a man with a strong will, a high capacity to get himself elected, but no very great conception of what he is going t…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway premiere of David Mamet’s China Doll. Here’s an excerpt. * * * “China Doll” is a new two-man play by one of America’s best li…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:45AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I write about a long-forgotten but incomparably vivid stage memoir, Emlyn Williams’ George. Here’s an excerpt. * * * For years I t…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMAn assemblage by Jon Hancock of fragmentary surviving newsreel footage and still photographs of Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, featuring Harry James on trumpet, Gene Krupa on …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble,’ and almost immediately pride—pride at hi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM“Movie actors are just ordinary mixed-up people—with agents.” Jean Kerr, Mary, Mary
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMOtto Klemperer is interviewed by John Freeman on Face to Face, originally telecast on the BBC in 1961: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each M…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“The actor’s technique is that personal and very private means by which you get the best out of yourself. Every actor does it differently. There’s never been an artist alive who didn�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMrs. T and I have just added a new piece to the Teachout Museum, a posthumous impression of an unsigned drypoint by Berthe Morisot, a member of the original circle of French Impressionists. …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMFrom 2005: The trouble with my life is not that it’s dull but that it sometimes becomes too interesting, at which point successive waves of beauty can start looking suspiciously like o…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“If you’re not lucky enough to cut your teeth on Shakespeare you should cut your teeth on farce.” Hume Cronyn (quoted in the New York Times, June 17, 2003)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMI had occasion the other day to Google Mel Powell, a child prodigy who became Benny Goodman’s pianist (and a fabulous one, too) at the age of seventeen. Seven years later he switched hats,…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMJacques d’Amboise dances three excerpts from George Balanchine’s Apollo, set to a score by Igor Stravinsky. Melissa Hayden is Terpsichore, Jillana is Calliope, and Patricia Neary is Poly…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“If you’re doing the devil, look for the angel in him. If you’re doing the angel, look for the devil in him.” Hume Cronyn (quoted in the New York Times, June 17, 2003)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I report on an all-male revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Here’s an excerpt. * * * How do you make the funniest music…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMAn excerpt from Mark Morris’ dance version of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group and originally telecast in 1995. Morris dances the role of D…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.” Rebecca West, “The Tosh Horse”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM…from a great man who overflowed with gratitude. From 1939, Louis Armstrong sings “You’re a Lucky Guy,” by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin:
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AM“My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it.” Rebecca West, Paris Review interview (Summer 1981)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMAn excerpt from Magic Fire, William Dieterle’s 1954 film biography of Richard Wagner. Erich Wolfgang Korngold, in costume as Hans Richter, is seen conducting the pit orchestra in excerpts …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“It’s an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pleasure or not read it at all. You shouldn’t be taught to monkey …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFrom 2004: To be sure, the one thing a new friend can never do for you is say I knew you when, and I find it rather sad that there are so few people in my life who can speak those words. Non…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Just how dificult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.” Rebecca West, …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMI have two good friends who are singletons and claim to actively prefer living alone. It’s hard for me to believe that this avowed preference is anything more than a sign that they’ve ye…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMSonny Rollins plays Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing” on Swedish TV in 1959. Henry Grimes is the bassist, Joe Harris the drummer: (This is the latest in a series of arts-relat…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“I’ve never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being surprised by the extreme, marvelous qualities of a sma…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I review two New York productions, the Broadway premiere of Misery and an off-Broadway revival of Incident at Vichy. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Now that the …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:45AM
